Privacy Policy
earlier.me is a service that stores personal messages and media and delivers them on a future date you choose. We take the privacy of those messages — and your personal information — seriously. This policy covers all users of earlier.me, including individual senders, recipients, care facility administrators, residents, and family members who interact with the service through a family link.
What we collect
Individual message senders
When you create a message, we collect:
- Your email address (used for account access and delivery notifications)
- Your name (optional, used as the sender name on your message)
- The content of your message — text, audio, or video
- The recipient's name and email address
- The delivery date you choose
- Email addresses of any Trusted Keepers you add
- Payment information (processed by Stripe — we do not store card details)
Care facility administrators
If you register a care facility organisation on earlier.me, we additionally collect:
- Your organisation's name, address, phone number, and logo
- Billing information for your facility's subscription (processed by Stripe)
- The email addresses of staff or admin accounts you create
Residents
Care facility administrators may create resident profiles on behalf of residents in their care. These profiles contain:
- The resident's name
- Family and friend contact names and email addresses provided by the facility
- Optional notes entered by staff (e.g. room number, preferences)
Residents access the service directly or via a family link. Messages they create are stored and handled in the same way as any other user's messages.
Family members (family link flow)
Family members who access earlier.me via a shareable family link (issued by a care facility) may provide their email address and create a message on behalf of a resident. We collect the same information as any individual sender in this case.
Technical data
We also collect standard technical information — IP addresses, browser type, and usage logs — for security and operational purposes.
How we use it
We use your information only to operate the service: storing messages and media, sending delivery notifications to you and your recipient, allowing you and your Trusted Keepers to receive the delivered message, and allowing you to log in and manage your messages.
For care facilities, we use organisation and resident data to operate the facility admin panel, generate family links, and manage your subscription.
We do not sell your data. We do not use your message content for advertising or training AI models. No one at earlier.me reads the contents of your messages.
How we store it
Messages, media files, and account data are stored on enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure (Amazon AWS). Media attachments are stored encrypted at rest. Messages are decrypted only at the moment of delivery.
Trusted Keepers
If you add Trusted Keepers to a message, their email addresses are stored alongside that message and they will receive a copy when it is delivered. They are not given access to your account or any other messages.
Family links
Care facilities can generate signed family links for residents. These links allow a family member to view the messages a resident has scheduled, without creating an earlier.me account. The email address they provide (if any) is stored and used only in connection with any message they create.
Third-party services
We use the following third-party services to operate earlier.me:
- Stripe — for payment processing. Your card details are handled entirely by Stripe and never stored on our servers.
- Postmark — for sending transactional email (delivery notifications, sign-in codes, family link emails).
- Amazon AWS — for cloud storage infrastructure.
Your rights
You may request deletion of your account and all associated messages and data at any time by emailing hello@earlier.me. Once a message has been delivered, the delivered copy cannot be recalled from the recipient's inbox, but we will delete all stored data on our end.
Care facility administrators may request deletion of their organisation's data, including resident profiles. Residents or their family members may also contact us directly to request removal of their information.
Cookies
We use a single session cookie to keep you logged in. We do not use tracking or advertising cookies.
Changes
If we make material changes to this policy we will update the date at the top of this page. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance.
Contact
Questions? Email us at hello@earlier.me.